


Zero

by nanda (nandamai)



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, M/M, One Night Stands, Shore Leave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-06-01
Updated: 1999-06-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 16:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nandamai/pseuds/nanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Late-night meanderings, one-night stands, and untaken chances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zero

**Author's Note:**

> A little something for (from?) a summer evening when the air feels like an embrace and the wind smells like rain and it’s all a little too perfect to sleep through. I am ignoring the Starfleet regulation we learned about in The Disease.

Midnight on my ship. Long after midnight, probably. I haven’t been keeping track.

The corridors are quieter than usual at this hour, the overhead lights dim; many of the crew are on the planet below. Occasionally I see one or two of them creeping from the transporter room back to their quarters. They straighten up when they see me. They nod and say, “Captain.” Then they’re gone.

I’m going nowhere. Walking, wandering. I’d tell anyone who asked that I was making the rounds. The hydroponics bay. The shuttle bays. Astrometrics. A jeffries tube or two.

I should go back to my quarters. But I can’t find what I’m looking for there. Or on a hospitable M-class world. Or in cargo bay five, in the darkness of space, on earth, anywhere. I think I left it behind years ago. I’m not even sure where, anymore. Still, I pretend authority when I tell the turbolift where to go.

Before I get to my own door I find myself standing in front of his. I know he’s not inside, and probably won’t be for hours. I only hesitate for a few seconds before overriding the lock.

In the half-light I take in the spare room, nothing out of place, no padds on the desk, no glasses on the table. As if he’s a guest here, too. As if we all are.

I stand by the viewport but I don’t look out. I sit. His couch feels just like mine, but if I close my eyes I can’t forget where I am. I still don’t know what time it is. It’s an artificial construct anyway, this system of hours and minutes that we’ve imposed on the rest of the Federation. Five thousand years ago some earthlings who wrote on clay tablets and counted in twelves and told stories about a failed search for eternal life cut the day into twenty-four pieces, and we can’t seem to break the habit.

I touch the wall with my fingertips to make sure it’s real.

When the door opens he’s only a shadow in the light from the corridor, a shadow in casual black clothing that looks like it was handmade for him. He calls for the lights in a raspy voice.

“Jesus, Kathryn. What the hell are you doing here?”

“Thinking.”

“In my quarters.”

I hope he’ll take a shrug as an apology. He must, because he doesn’t ask again. He asks if I want anything from the replicator.

“No. Thank you though.”

I slip my shoes off, wrap my arms around my knees. Chakotay orders mint tea and sits at the opposite end of the couch, looking at me as if I can explain. I don’t. I can’t.

“Nice night?”

He blows on the tea to cool it. “Nice enough.”

“No surprises?”

“That you should be concerned about? No.”

“Good. This ship needs a break.”

His eyes settle on the stars behind my head. “Well, it’s pretty, there are two moons to revel under, the climate is comfortable. You should check it out for yourself. I hear there are some good beaches south of the capital city.”

I ignore his suggestion as he must have known I would. “Does it ever feel strange to you to walk on a planet again?”

“Sometimes. It’s not the walking, though. It’s the sunlight and the unpurified air.” He shrugs, indifferent. “Any particular reason why you’re asking me this question at 0300 hours in my quarters?”

“Just thinking.”

Chakotay sets the mug on the table and scrubs his face with both hands. He smells of impatience and peppermint and sex. “Kathryn, are you all right?”

I ignore this question, too. “Who was she?”

“Who was she?” he repeats, as if something critical hides between the words. “He. A boy. Legal but uncomplicated. And blessedly lacking in any of your more … feminine attributes.”

I nod. “Should that upset me?”

“What you feel or don’t feel about it is up to you, Kathryn.”

The words might as well be in whatever passes for language in fluidic space. I say them aloud but they lie adrift in the air. “What I feel?”

His eyes narrow, suspicion and concern warring for his face. “Kathryn, are you all right?” he asks again.

I start to say I’m fine, but bite the words off before they can leave my mouth. “I don’t feel anything anymore, Chakotay.”

My confession slides off his skin. “I don’t know how to help you,” he says. “I’ve tried. I’ve been trying for five years.”

“Make me feel something.”

“I can’t. I don’t know how.”

“You can. You do.”

“Christ, Kathryn, what has gotten into you tonight?”

He watches me, waiting for an answer he knows he won’t get. A current passes between us, sharp and unstable, and it hurts.

“Make love with me,” I say.

He doesn’t even have the grace to look surprised. The ghost of a smile haunts his lips. “No,” he says.

“No?”

“No. Unless that was an order, Captain.”

I look away.

He sighs, and his voice softens. He squeezes the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “I can’t be your plaything, Kathryn. I can’t … it wouldn’t mean anything to you. It has to mean something for me.”

“Did the boy mean something?”

“What do you think?”

They’re pointless questions, both of them, and neither of us answers. My throat constricts. I can hardly hear my own voice. “It would, Chakotay. It would mean something.”

“Oh? What?” he asks with no curiosity.

“It would mean that we’re not alone.”

He barks out a laugh, and I realize what I’ve just said. “Get out,” he says.

“Oh, God, Chakotay, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—I should never have said that. I wasn’t thinking.”

“No. You weren’t. Go home, Kathryn. It’s late and I’m tired.” He picks up his mug and looks at me like I’m an errant junior crewman who doesn’t understand the word “dismissed.”

I force myself to breathe, and to unfold my body from the knot I’ve tied myself into. “Chakotay … I shouldn’t have said it then, either. About the Borg, about being alone. It was cruel and it wasn’t true.”

“Thank you,” he says, his jaw stiff. “It’s a little late, but thank you. Do you feel better now?”

“No.”

There’s a question on his face, but he doesn’t ask it. He shakes his head and says, “Take some shore leave, Kathryn. Solve your problem the same way I do.”

“Does it work?”

He studies me, trying to judge whether I want a serious answer or not, and apparently decides that I do. He takes a deep breath and blows it out quickly. “In some ways, yes. In other ways, no.”

“Then you don’t really recommend it?”

“Depends on what you’re looking for, doesn’t it?”

What I’m looking for, again.

“I used to think I was looking for home,” I say, barely above a whisper.

“So did I.”

“But I don’t know what I’m looking for now.”

“No. I don’t know what you’re looking for, either.”

We stare at each other. It’s a challenge, but I don’t know what the stakes are. I’m the one to turn away. I look at the wall, because there is nothing else.

Chakotay swallows the last of his tea. He stands, tosses the mug into the recycler. “I’m going to bed,” he says. “You can stay there if you want, but I’m going to bed.”

I watch him go. In a few seconds he reappears to hand me a blanket. “Just in case,” he says.

I thank him, but I don’t lie down even after I hear him settle into his own bed. I don’t know if I should stay. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know how to feel anything anymore. I don’t know if I want to feel anything anymore.

I turn to watch the stars and in my mind I count all the systems we’ve passed through and all the chances I’ve passed by. I don’t even know what to regret, anymore.

Chakotay’s voice surprises me. “Dammit,” he says quietly. I turn my ear towards the bedroom. I hear the rustle of sheets; it sounds like he’s rolling over. Then he calls out to me. “Kathryn?”

“What?”

“When you’re ready to actually talk, I’m here. I want to help you. I just can’t keep playing this game.”

I don’t think I can do anything but keep playing this game. That’s all it is now, all of it.

“I understand,” I say, knowing it’s not enough for either of us.

I lay the blanket, still folded, on the couch. This time I make it all the way to my quarters, but I don’t sleep. I sit on my couch in the half-light, watching the stars and counting all the chances I’ve passed by. 


End file.
